April Basho Results and Deliberation Council

Results

First champion of the Makuuchi division is Koki Ganzohnegnade. It’s his eleventh championship, and fourth one in a Top division.Taizo Pikarocky has been awarded by a Jun-Yucho, for keeping his result close to the Champion.

Juryo has been dominated by Nakamaro Ganzuebel. With 52 straight victories in a row, his advance to Makuuchi is secured. Who will be the first “black point” on his career?

Sandanme division has an additional Ketteisen play-off between Gesshin Tsuda (Taihoyamanaka-beya) and Chojiro Koekanegawa (Kosimazaki-beya). They are clashing for the first time in their careers.

Jonidan Championship goes to Kotaro Mi-Mitsui. He repaid Wega from an upset in last Tournament.

Jonokuchi Champion is Nobuyuki Ganzhart. Could it be another future sekitori from Bembel-beya?

Emperor’s Cup is awarded to Bembel-beya for managing to get 4 Championships for this Tournament.

Due to Sandanme division having a “Bhutan-Poland” play-offs, Emperor’s Cup has been not awarded.

Poll results

Meeting: 6 votes

Gradual implementation: 4 votes

According to voting, oyakatas are willing to create Master titles right of the bat. Due to different timezones and opportunities, I would ask each oyakata to analyze the gathered material and said his opinion about that. I would also ask each oyakata to not talk about his rikishi.

Making Sanyaku

Top 8 rikishi (currently ranked Maegashira 1 East to 4 West) and all rikishi, who achieved a kachi-koshi in current tournament, have been checked. Results of those rikishi you may see here:

Explanation of the all columns which may have unknown meaning:
– *Kanji* is… well…. I was compiling the table and I accidentally found myself looking for kanji. But when I found that, it was already too late. For my defence I may only say I tried to get the meaning (understanding basic German and Japanese).
– In Awards column you may find all the awards gathered by specified rikishi, with sekitori awards (awards taken in 15-bout divisions) as bold/bigger ones.
– Wins column sums number of wins from last three tournaments, just as similar statistics are made in real Ozumo and taken into consideration to announce/revoke Masters.
– Average is another way of showing that number of wins.
– Last 5 columns are numbers of wins in last 5 tournaments. Wins in toriteki divisions (7-bout lower divisions) are on a gray background. Any bigger award is colored: Championship in yellow, Runner-Up in green, Play-Off Participant in cyan.

The thing we need to talk about are the highest titles: Ozeki and Yokozuna. Let me copypaste materials from Wikipedia about that for oyakatas, who don’t know the topic well. 🙂

Yokozuna (横綱?, IPA: [jokodzɯnaꜜ]) is the highest rank in sumo.

As the sport’s biggest stars, yokozuna are in many ways the public face of sumo and the way they conduct themselves is highly scrutinized, as it is seen as reflecting on the image of sumo as a whole.

In modern sumo, the qualifications that an ōzeki must satisfy to be promoted are that he has enough power, skill and dignity/grace (品格 hinkaku) to qualify. There are no absolute criteria, nor is there a set quota: there have been periods with no wrestlers at yokozuna rank, and there have been periods with as many as four simultaneously. The power and skill aspects are usually considered with reference to recent tournament performance. The de facto standard is to win two consecutive championships as ōzeki or an equivalent performance. In the case where the “equivalent performance” criterion is used the wrestler’s record over the previous three tournaments is taken into account with an expectation of at least one tournament victory and two runner-up performances, with none of the three records falling below twelve wins. Thus a consistent high level of performance is required. Winning two tournaments with a poor performance between them is not usually sufficient. The rules are not set in stone and hence in reaching their conclusion the Yokozuna Deliberation Council and Sumo Association can interpret the criteria more leniently or strictly and also take into account other factors, such as total number of tournament victories, the quality of the wins and whether the losses show any serious vulnerabilities.

The ōzeki (大関), or champion rank, is immediately below yokozuna in the ranking system. Until the yokozuna rank was introduced, ōzeki was the highest rank attainable.

The promotion of a wrestler to ōzeki is a multi-tournament process. A wrestler at the rank of sekiwake will be considered for promotion if he has achieved a total of at least 33 wins over the three most recent tournaments, including ten or more wins in the tournament just completed. Promotion is discretionary and there are no hard-and-fast rules, though a three-tournament record of 33 wins is considered a near-guarantee. Other factors toward promotion will include tangibles such as winning a tournament or defeating yokozuna, as well as the wrestler’s overall consistency, prowess, and quality of sumo—for example, a record of illegal maneuvers or reliance on certain dodging techniques would count against the dignity expected of an ōzeki. Promotions are recommended by the Judging Division to the Board of Directors of the Japan Sumo Association. If it is a first promotion to the rank a member of the Board of Directors will formally visit the wrestler’s stable to inform the new ōzeki of his promotion. The ōzeki will usually make a speech on this occasion, promising to do his best to uphold the dignity of the rank.

There is a week until Banzuke ranking publication. Opinion of all oyakatas matters, so please be fair and… discuss!

Well, first of all thanks for your efforts to explain the banzuke criteria. Now here is what I think should be the Sanyaku ranks in May:

Ganzohnegnade (no comment)
Mi-Wajima (Yokozuna rank debatable, Jun-Yusho In Dec, shared Jun-Yusho in Jan plus Zensho Yusho in March should be enough to qualify for highest rank, despite a not so strong performance in April, border case for me)
Pikarocky (getting stronger and stronger but unfortunately he never had grabbed a Yusho in highest division so far, thus his rank should be Ozeki as of now)
Koezakura (former Koemura) has finished the last 4 basho with double digit wins, never worse than 11 wins, no doubts he is fully qualified for Ozeki

And then there is the special case of Tatsuryu. If Sanyaku would have been implemented a few basho earlier, his strong performance of 35 wins from November – January would easily have qualified him. From that perspective I tend to vote for Ozeki rank. If he gets weaker in future he simply will lose that rank.

Below these Rikishi there are plenty of young talents who are in the starting block for an Ozeki run. Koeshimazu looks most promising with his 13 wins in April (the 13 wins from J14 in March can not be considered). Mi-Matsuzawa and Koejishai were ranked too low in April, i.e. for me their excellent scores of 11 and 13 wins can’t be considered as of now, but as both might be ranked in Sanyaku (Sekiwake/Komusubi) we have to watch their further development.

Btw, not sure about the translations and writing in kanji but for the bright star Sirius I found this here: 青星

Ganzohnegnade should become highest Yokozuna. Pikarocky I see as Ozeki (there are only 2 Words missing for the highest Rank: Ganzohnegnade & Mi-Wajima). Koezakura & Tatsuryu also Ozeki. I dont do any Suggestions on my own Rikishi…

Results First champion of the Makuuchi division is Koki Ganzohnegnade. It’s his eleventh championship, and fourth one in a Top division. Taizo Pikarocky has been awarded by a Jun-Yucho, for keeping his result close to the Champion. Juryo has been dominated by Nakamaro Ganzuebel. With 52 straight victories in a […]

HARU BASHO RESULTS Juryo Yusho has been awarded to Gombei Mi-Wajima. It’s his first championship after 6 tournaments being too close to the victory and even participating three times in the play-off phase. Could it be Ganzohnegnade’s reign is endangered? Also, his stablemate, Toshiro Mi-Matsuzawa has been awarded by a […]